Waste and Recycling

Waste and Recycling is managed by Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, full details of the services they offer can be found on their webpage. There are also many community and business led recycling initiatives available for us to dispose of harder to recycle materials and products. Please find the details on this page. 


The Surrey Environmental Partnership have a search tool and app which allows you to check how to dispose of an item, this covers all Council-operated services and does now seem indicate when there may be a Terracycle recycling scheme available, however other local schemes may not be listed.


Recycle Now has a search tool that allows you to find local recycling points although these are mostly the supermarket and shop-based collection points for soft plastics and batteries and doesn't include information about other local collection schemes.


It is really important that you check carefully which items are accepted at each waste collection site and sort your waste carefully when using these recycling schemes as contamination of a load of recycling can result in a whole load having to be incinerated (for Council recycling collections) and a waste of volunteer time sorting through waste in the community led Terracycle schemes.


If you are aware of any new initiatives that we have not included then please let us know!


Council Run Recycling Schemes

Kerbside Recycling

Details of the Epsom and Ewell Borough Simply Recycling scheme can be found here.  Please note that Tetrapak cartons, plastic bags, plastic film, coffee cups and foil are not currently accepted in the kerbside mixed recycling green wheelie bin. Contamination of recycling continues to be an issue for the Council so please make sure you put items in the correct bin.

Epsom Community Recycling Centre

A greater range of items can be recycled at the Community Recycling Centre on Blenheim Road as shown in the image below. Full details of items accepted for recycling can be found here where you can also find details of the current opening times. Please note the Epsom Community Recycling Centre is currently closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Recycling of small electrical items

You can recycle small electrical items such as kettles, toasters, irons, radios, hairdryers, toasters, mobile phones etc. at recycling banks at three of the local Council recycling points: 

1. Christ Church car park, Christ Church Road, Epsom, 

2. Stoneleigh Broadway (near the library), 

3. Depot Road car park, Depot Road, Epsom 



Community and Business Led Recycling Schemes

Marks and Spencer and Oxfam partnership: "Let's Shwop" pre-loved clothes collection

M&S have a pre-loved clothes collection scheme. Simply put your pre-loved clothes in a bag and place in the "Shwop" box at M&S. This is a partnership with Oxfam who will also accept clothing donations. If at least one item of clothing or soft furnishings donated to an Oxfam store is M&S labelled you will receive a £5 M&S voucher off a £35 spend on clothing, home and beauty products in M&S stores, see their webpage for full terms and conditions of this offer. 

Sainsbury's Recycling Schemes

The Sainsbury's store at Kiln Lane now has a collection bin for Sainsbury's TU clothing coat hangers. There is also a collection bin for a wide range of soft plastics including:

Dry food flexible plastic (Bread, cereal, rice & dry food bags, confectionery, biscuit & cake wrappers, crisp & snack packets)

Other food flexible plastic (Cheese wrap, peelable film lids & frozen food bags, fruit/vegetable/salad bags & flower wrapping, multipack film wrap, clingfilm & sleeves on bottles)

Pouches & sachets (Coffee, confectionery, homecare, sauce/baby food/pet food/microwaveable food pouches, toiletries refill pouches, packets & sachets)

Non-food flexible plastic (carrier bags, clothing bags, bubble wrap, margarine & newspaper wrappers, toilet roll & kitchen roll wrapping).

See their webpage on soft plastic recycling for more details.

Co-op Soft Plastic Recycling

Co-op stores now have soft plastic recycling collection points. "Soft plastics are lightweight plastics that often cannot be placed in recycling bins at home. Think plastic film lids on yoghurt pots, soft fruit punnets and ready meals, as well as plastic crisp packets, pasta bags and chocolate or biscuit wrappers. What they’re not are plastic bottles, tubs, pots, trays and caps. If you’re not sure, a simple test is to scrunch it up and if it pings back, it’s a useful indicator it's soft plastic." Currently the following Co-op branches in the borough have collection points: Upper High Street - Epsom, Chessington Road - Ewell, Stoneleigh Broadway and Tattenham Crescent. See their website for more details.

Lidl Recycling Collection Point

Lidl stores now collect some packaging items for recycling. They have three bins in which they collect:

Cardboard & Paper

Plastic

Other Recyclables – all other recyclable materials are accepted in this bin such as aluminium and beverage cans.

For more details see their website.

The Body Shop "Return, Recycle, Repeat" Scheme

The Body Shop now accept beauty packaging, bottles, pipettes, pumps, mascaras and lip glosses (the hard to recycle bits) at all UK stores. They will also accept packaging from other brands, although ask that easy to recycle items are placed in your kerbside recycling. See their website for more details.

TerraCycle

TerraCycle is a recycling organisation who recycle items which are not typically collected in our kerbside recycling. There are a number of different collection points locally for different waste streams, please see the collection point details for up to date information on items collected.

Greenway Terracycle Collection

Collection point in The Wells area. There is a huge list of items collected at this site and the list does change as new schemes are launched, so do check their facebook page for details of items collected. Please remember that residents volunteer their time to arrange these recycling collections so please ensure you only take items which are currently accepted and that they are clean and dry. 

Hookfield Terracycle Recycling

The Hookfield Terracycle Collection point is now closed. Please use the alternative collection points listed on this page.

Tadworth & Local Area Recycling Page

The Tadworth Terracyle group have a number of drop off points in the local area and collect for a wide range of the Terracycle recycling streams. Please check their facebook page for details of items collected, where to drop them off and how to package the items.

Cuddington Terracycle Scheme

Collection bins are located at Shadbolt Park, Vale Road /Cunliffe Road(opposite Post Office), Salisbury Road (by Cuddington Community Primary School).  Accepted waste includes items shown in the poster to the right and the Wharburtons bakery packaging shown below.

Ryman

Collection point for pens, ink and toner cartridges and batteries.

Boots Opticians

Collection point for soft contact lenses and associated packaging.

Superdrug/Boots/Sainsburys

Collection points for all brands of makeup containers.



Disposable Face Mask Recycling

Wilkos originally introduced face mask recycling points in store from 1 April 2021 for 3 months, although the bins are still in store. Epsom's store is one of the participating branches.

While it is better for disposable masks to be recycled than end up in landfill (or worse, littering our Borough) if possible please use a reusable mask. Remember that when plastics are recycled the quality degrades so it is better to use reusable products.


Epsom Methodist Church - Eco Church Recycling Schemes

The Eco Church group collect for a range of recycling schemes, including: used stamps, used batteries, gently used bras, used spectacles, empty pill blister packs and crisp packets.  For more information on the items accepted please see the Eco Church website.

Litter and Fly Tipping

Epsom and Ewell Borough Council Resident Litter Picking Pledge

Residents can register to become a litter picking volunteer by signing the Council's Litter Picking Pledge. The Council have litter picking kits available to lend to volunteers, although due to high demand you may have to wait for a kit to become available.

Keep Epsom and Ewell Tidy (KEET)

For waste which hasn't been disposed of correctly, Keep Epsom and Ewell Tidy (KEET) promote and organise litter picks in the Borough and highlight the great work done by litter picking individuals and groups. KEET have litter picking equipment available for residents to borrow, contact them via twitter or facebook if you'd like to find out more or to arrange to borrow some equipment.

Fly Tipping

For information about what to do if you see fly tipped waste please see the Council webpage which provides a form for you to report a fly tip.

Litter Bins - damaged, overflowing and how to request a new one

If you see a damaged or overflowing litter bin in the borough then you can report this to the Council using the eform on their litter webpage. If you would like to request that a new litter bin is installed, then you can also use this form to highlight where you would like it to be located and explain why you think there should be a bin there.